1. Field
The present invention relates to vehicles such as electric three-wheeled vehicles and more particularly to electric vehicles which run by driving a pair of left and right rear wheels by the driving power of a motor.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the past, there have been known saddle-ride type electric three-wheeled vehicles in which a front fork attached to the forward side of a body frame supports a front wheel and a rear body vertically swingable and transversely tiltable with respect to the body frame is attached on the rearward side of the body frame and a pair of left and right rear wheels driven by a motor are supported on the rear body.
Patent Literature 1 (JP-A No. Hei5-161221) discloses an electric three-wheeled vehicle in which a motor, a drive system for transmitting the rotary driving power of the motor to rear wheels and various electric components such as a battery and PDU are attached to a rear body which is vertically swingable and transversely tiltable with respect to a body frame (see FIG. 13).
However, in the technology described in Patent Literature 1, the battery, motor, drive system, various electric components and so on are all mounted on the rear body and swing vertically and transversely. The overall weight of the rear body, namely the unspring weight of the rear wheel suspension, tends to be large, which may affect the road surface followability of the rear wheels. It also has a problem that if the overall weight of the rear body increases and the roll moment of the three-wheeled vehicle is larger, the rigidity of the swing mechanism, etc. joined to the body frame must be increased and in terms of front/rear weight distribution, the rear weight of the vehicle body will be larger than the front weight thereof, affecting the steerability of the vehicle.